Sunday, 20 November 2016

This is a bit of a catch-up on our Branch AGM in September, since we haven't yet shared the photos.

After the necessary business session in the morning and a bring-and-share lunch (always enjoyable!), we got down to the serious stuff of rummaging through our bags of fabrics, fibres and wool, to make a start on creating our 'Autumn' panels.

We had made the frames at the spring members' day, so now for the fun and making a start on the four panels to go in them - one for each season.

Our programme secretaries, Gill and Lucy, had set up a beautiful "nature" table to provide some inspiration, and then gave us some guidance on needle felting a background and making a leather-look material (brown paper, paint, PVA glue, tissue paper) from which to cut out leaf shapes.

Sunday, 13 November 2016

Following Hanny Newton's inspiring talk about her journey in embroidery, we enjoyed a lovely gold work day school with her.

Hanny Newton - Copper and tin on wool blend fabric

We were given everything we needed on arrival, so that we could get straight into our stitching: a ready-hooped piece of fabric, needles, scissors, and a generous selection of metal and embroidery threads with which to start on our gold work samples - brilliant! After a short demonstration from Hanny, we embarked on couching our chosen metal thread with a variety of stitches, getting used to manipulating the threads and gradually building up our repertoire sample by sample.

After a bit of practice, we were able to start thinking about the combinations we preferred and how to develop them further.

It was an engrossing and very enjoyable day, and Hanny was helpful and encouraging. Many of us had been wary of gold work, fearing it was going to be difficult and very exacting. However, Hanny's contemporary approach, which is freer and more informal, gave us the confidence we needed to experiment and have fun.

We agreed that we had all learned a great deal and went away after a thoroughly satisfying and inspiring day.

Saturday, 29 October 2016

Members and visitors will be welcome at our talk on Friday 4th November by Hanny Newton, a hand embroiderer with a great love of stitch - especially gold work embroidery. She loves to find inspiration from the rich tradition of hand embroidery and uses this to find her own contemporary approach to hand stitch.

Hanny studied hand embroidery at the Royal School of Needlework, and then contemporary craft at Falmouth University, which allowed her to combine her interest in both traditional and modern approaches.

After graduating in the summer of 2014, Hanny was selected for the Embroiderers' Guild Graduate Showcase 2014 and has exhibited nationally since then, including at Handmade in Britain, Art in Action and the Selvedge Spring Fair, and she delivers talks and workshops nationwide.

Visitors are always welcome to come along to talks.

For details of times and venue, please see 'About our Branch ... How to find us' .

Thursday, 20 October 2016

Fran Holmes, a member of textile group Meniscus, gave us a very entertaining talk about her textile journey from City & Guilds (which struck a chord with many of us) onwards. We learned about some of the unusual techniques she used to create her highly original cabbages for a C&G module,

and innovative uses for Spunbond (the new name for Lutradur) and Vilene/Vliesoline products, such as the very useful Solufleece for machine-stitched items.

which happened to be the subject of our day school the following day ....

Thankfully, Fran had made up kits of materials and provided templates for the day school, so we just needed to bring our sewing machines and appropriate threads. This meant we wasted no time in getting down to the stitching,

and we spent a thoroughly enjoyable - and productive - day on our flower and leaf making:

We had already painted the polystyrene inner for our tiny pot, so that just left the stitching to be finished at home, and assembly of the final 'plant' ...

Friday, 16 September 2016

September's JETS workshop was very successful. The girls covered jars with ribbon and lace, and then stitched on beads and sequins. Some ribbon added to the rim and a (battery) tea light popped inside meant they all had a pretty light to take home. They also took away another jar and the bits and pieces to create a second one at home.

Monday, 15 August 2016

We had a brilliant two-day summer school with Chris Gray last week-end, held in the lovely rural setting of Leek Wootton deep in Warwickshire countryside. Chris gave us two days of expert and entertaining tuition on stamping and stitching, along with lots of tips and anecdotes, to make unique folded books on a theme of our choice, which - if they turn out anything like Chris's own - will become beautiful keepsakes.

Chris brought everything we needed, from a wide range of
wooden stamps, stencils and paints to her vast stash of hand-dyed fabric,
beads, sequins, threads and wools. We
spent a happy and very busy couple of days creating patterns, motifs,
re-arranging layouts and then stitching and embellishing. All works to be completed at home, of course,
but we felt we’d had a really indulgent and satisfying time.

Decisions, decisions, which motifs to use?

Deciding on the layout

Preparing to stitch

The fun part is selecting the threads and embellishments

A very varied collection of themes shaping up

Chris is a generous and very helpful tutor, and she has been kind enough to put a very complimentary post about us on her blog, with some photos of work in progress: